The Only Time You Want Zero Engagement on Facebook

Facebook’s latest News Feed algorithm update allows Facebook to surface more relevant content more easily based on your past engagement with a post, a friend, or a brand page. Essentially, they want to figure out what you enjoy and show you more of that, even if you missed something by a few hours.

Among the factors Facebook uses to measure your past engagement are Likes, shares, comments, and (perhaps most interestingly) how often you hide posts from a person or company. As a result, Facebook’s brand page analytics, which they call "Insights," now shows you Post Hides, Hides of All Posts, Reports of Spam, and Unlikes of Page by Post. This is critical to note as a marketer, as it represents the only time you want engagement metrics to reach zero.

Social media engagement metrics are typically measurements of positive sentiment -- Likes, shares, retweets, pins, and so on. We as marketers in 2013 aim to increase these numbers. What's bizarre about Facebook Insight's new, um, insights ... is that for perhaps the first time in social media, we now must react to a negative type of engagement. As Christopher S. Penn on the always-stellar marketing blog Awaken Your Superhero called out recently, we now have a set of engagement metrics that we actually want to minimize.

This is smartly said by Christopher, but it brings to mind a scary reality: how do you respond if metrics like "hides" start to climb? This action, after all, measures essentially a “Dislike” button, and now we can actually report its use and act on what we learn.

So what, exactly, should you do if your Facebook Insights report shows a high volume of followers hiding your posts? We put our heads together on the HubSpot marketing team and came up with the following checklist:

1) Examine frequency immediately. Are you posting too much?

The very first action you should take is to examine frequency. Consider your own habits with Facebook posts, whether from brands, friends, or family. Nothing is worse than seeing too much from the same source, right? If you see your negative engagement metrics start to creep up on Facebook, be sure to critique your own posting schedule. Social media, and really all of inbound, is about treating people like people and being helpful, useful, and human. Nobody likes to be bombarded over and over.

Compare posts with unusually high "hide" counts in your Insights report on Facebook -- had you posted right before? Are you leaving enough time between posts to allow your audience's feed to populate with a variety of content from friends and family? Nobody likes the friend who posts 17 pictures of their dog within an hour, let alone the business who opens the floodgates and dominates the news feed.

2) Create (or revisit) your buyer personas.

Checking your post frequency was the first action to take because it may help you solve something quickly and urgently. Building or revisiting your buyer personas, on the other hand, is a foundation on which all your inbound marketing can be built. If you're new to personas, these are semi-fictional representations of your ideal customers based on real data about customer demographics and behavior, along with educated speculation about their personal histories, motivations, and concerns.

Human interactions improve if you have greater context on the person with whom you're speaking, and the same can be said of sharing content on Facebook. Understanding your buyer personas upfront can help you post relevant content. If you're already created personas but still see an increase in followers hiding your Facebook posts, it might be time to revisit your original descriptions.

With your buyer persona description or template pulled up, you can then ...

3) Analyze your content mix. Are you posting the right variety?

Remember the comedian Dane Cook? Those who do will sometimes comment about how great his first standup act was, followed by how progressively awful he got with each subsequent show. The common knock on him? He did the same thing over and over and over again, and now, he’s borderline irrelevant.

The same can be said of providing your Facebook followers with content. People are nuanced and change their motivations, even throughout a single day. Your content should try and match that. You don’t need to do an in-depth psychoanalysis of your buyer, you simply need to create a variety of content. On Facebook, you can share text, visuals, video, links, invitations, and more.

Mix things up to keep it interesting, exciting, and engaging in a positive way ... just like any human relationship! And using that buyer persona description can help you pinpoint the types of content to start with if you're rethinking your posting strategy. (For example, if your buyer is often pressed for time, cut down the amount of text and use more graphics, with relevant copy written in graphical format.)

4) Compare posts being hidden with other, more successful content.

If you see an uptick in post hides, compare the content driving those negative actions to other posts that might have received more Likes, shares, and comments. With what types of content does your audience actively engage? Can you create and post more of that type? Was the negative trend hitting a certain type of content? Facebook Insights also shows you the “Best Post Types” report to make this analysis a bit easier.

In the event you lack any data because there hasn’t been engagement with your posts overall, or if you’re just starting on Facebook, consider a quick glance at competitors' Facebook pages or other companies you admire in your industry. What are they posting that their followers seem to engage with positively? Are visual posts getting Liked and shared more than text-based comments? Do more people share posts when the company publishes fun, playful things versus more serious, helpful content? Some call this “stealing” -- artists call this “inspiration” -- but whatever the case, it’s good to survey the playing field every once in a while, especially if you're just starting out.

While you should do everything in your power to avoid upsetting followers, it’s important to be realistic: someone, somewhere may actually choose to hide your post. (We never would -- your posts are awesome -- but someone might.) And that’s okay! Once you cover all your bases listed above, crosscheck your negative and positive numbers. How do your overall hides compare to the volume of Likes and shares you’re getting? Keep in mind that the more visibility you have, the more all numbers will increase. Your goal is to ensure that you minimize your hides while maximizing your Likes and shares.

As always, with any content or inbound marketing tactic, react to data and optimize your approach but ultimately, spend your time doing what your customers and fans love. Address any alarming trends in your Facebook data accordingly, but keep in mind that you should be solving a problem, providing education or entertainment, and generally spending most of your time providing your Facebook followers with the best experience possible.

What advice do you have for creating positive engagement and reacting to negative sentiment on Facebook?

Interesting. With social media, you mostly look at positive metrics. We try to get as many shares and likes as possible. It's a little weird to look at metrics that you want to be at 0. Never really thought about it actually, thanks for this.

tom weinkle

great post and perspective..a sort of looking forward through the rearview mirror....

I look at metrics as much as I check what apple is trading for today.. Sales n earnings is all that matter, someone could hide a post cause they save them in reverse or the colors hurt thier eyes.. Mabey everyone felt sick at the same time and all hid a cheeseburger ...says nothing about the metrics and why hiding a post on any given Sunday was for a valid reason that mattered. I've hidden every post due to non soliciting parties it was I. The way or the green looked funny .. Fact is no normal person comes to Facebook to engage , fishing here is ok but end users shopping in Facebook is not a reality until a solid system of kiosk like vendors have shops that are branded well and use Facebook as the web within the web as I call it .. Some never leave and only go in Facebook .. What's that say something else I'm sure , we can't figure it out Facebook wont get super support on he promise if mobile marketing hitting record highs they need to give back real world tools and try working with google .. Like victoria at wildfire has possibly being the least nor the guiding light if you will for both platforms to settle into their niches and build together to attain ther ultimate goals of identity standard.. the unheardof ratea of mobile commerce rising .. That's a given .. We don't buy anything I. YouTube ever but swine does , enough to make it worth while to make a video every Wednesday ..
A web tool or business with the user generated content streaming in making automated magic happen is the true king of engagement utilization social power reach too metrics and whatever kiss metrics are out there spendagers earnings and growth where does the social platform stand why how and could it be better ... It's possible Mary is nicer here .. But yea tons of too
For improvement that is clearly needed and would change the worlds day to day existence .. It's all about YOU if you are really trying to help others every Steph of the way considering and sharing just for the greater good that's what powers conversion because to pay it forward within a network is to never have low or high metrics but to have good n wierd days that's all I think the social ecosystem reflects.. The people using the platform simply to use it not thinking shopping omg clicking looking , every second .. Majority is by chance .. Oh Jenna marbles is cute .. Click .. Ahh next ..
Thanks
& i hope that made sence it sounded good in my head may not have came out correctly most times it doesn't .. Lol
But hubspot rules!
All Natural ,, Seo web tools real world web tools real visible goals and actual tangible evidance are things that are still most sought after and debated upon that's about all ill say
For a year .. And that's my point .. Get a good web guy and your roi won't matter get a good visionary and nothing maters again ever .. -mj

We agree that posting of images really improves the click through rate especially towards the later part of the day. Status updates should be kept at a minimum of 3 per day to prevent being regarded as newsfeed "spamming".

Appreciate the comment about the overkill of dog photograph posting & other similar things. Blogging can be the same. Sending dozens & dozens of these postings will be seen as excessive & obsessive & no one has time for this. Good observations well written. Thank you for sharing.

The experts are always saying that we should not post more then 2 or 3 status updates per day....And we have this constant newsfeed going to millions of FB users, people that obviously are enjoying checking their FB page MANY times throughout the day--even going to smart phones to view many of these.....
So I question the decision to limit yourself to posting 3x per day, IF your images and the experiences you share are being highly commented on, highly liked, and heavily shared....Obviously the Fans engaging are looking for posts they would be intrigued by.....I am suggesting that maybe we can post 5X or more in a day, if we make sure our posts are spread out in the day, and that feedback remains desirable from each ( Likes stay high)....my page is www.facebook.com/WILD.DIVING if anyone has any responses or suggestions on this topic.....I am on the fence as to whether I should increase numbers of posts per day.....Part of this is the assumption that if my edgerank only gets me 35% of my Fanbase with each post, can I REACH 85% of my Fan Base if I post quite a bit more that same day :-) ??? !!!